A RWBY Alien parody
by The Layman
Summary: For those who've seen the movie Alien, I don't need to explain what this is. For those who haven't seen the movie, well...read on. See what happens...


People had always _said_ that suspended hibernation was supposed to be like a dreamless sleep: you barely noticed when it happened, and before you were even aware it was happening, it was already over. It was meant as a way to lessen the perceived passing of time during the years-long trips it took to travel between the many colonies Humanity has established once interstellar travel became feasible. It was also a good way to ensure job security; after all, who better to care for and operate a hauling rig then the people who stayed with it long enough to learn all its ins and outs? It was lonely work, and often boring, but it paid well enough to set someone up for retirement once their tenure of duty was up.

What people _didn't_ tell you about hibernation was that the 'dreamless' part of your slumber was anything but dreamless. More often than not your mind would conjure scenarios to occupy itself during sleep, whether it be replayed memories the person held dear or random scenarios dictated only by what flowed down the stream of consciousness. Something you learned through experience was that your emotional state going into 'hypersleep' had a hand in what sort of dreams you'd have.

For Yang Xiao-Long, she'd been dreaming about her mother before her hypersleep pod hissed open, slowly rousing her from her artificial slumber. She never enjoyed the process, always found it rather jarring to suddenly get yanked back into consciousness. Not that it really helped matters that she'd never been much of an early riser before she'd signed into this job…

As the fog began to clear from her mind, she took in more of the details around her: the circular walls of the hibernation chamber, still grey and lifeless, the soft lighting, the lids of the other pods...there was a scraping sound coming from underneath her pod, but the feeling of a small animal hopping up into the pod and licking her face soon solved that mystery.

"Heya, Zwei…," she said, patting the dark-haired corgi (and honorary mascot of the ship) on his head, "miss me?"

He gave a soft "rrfff!" in response.

"Yeah, that's what I thought…"

After that the other occupants of the room began to stir, soon climbing from their pods and retrieving their possessions from the lockers in that adjacent room.

The face Yang zeroed in on once was standing on her own two feet again was that of her father, Taiyang. Or, as the rest of the crew knew him, the Captain of the _Sunny Dragon_. He'd taken to hauling Dust after…'the incident' with her mother, citing that "he needed some time to get over what happened" before shipping off on his first trip.

She'd just turned 7 at the time, and after 2 trips and 9 years, they both decided that it would be better if she joined him, lest either miss more time in each other's lives.

"How's it going, old man?" she asked, giving him a gentle smack on the arm before opening up her own locker, "You get your beauty rest in?"

"_Yes, Yang,_" he responded, semi-sarcastically, "I got my beauty rest in. ...how about you, you sleep well?" He stepped into a pair of well-worn pants and pulled them up to his waist.

She nodded, grabbing an orange tank top and slipping it over her head. "Yeah, nothing weird happened." She then grabbed a pair of cargo pants and motioned for Taiyang to turn around, to which he complied. The rest of the crew were busy with their own post hypersleep rituals and weren't paying any special attention to them.

"That's good; don't want Space Madness…!~ Oooooooooh…!~"

She rolled her eyes, not that her father could see it right now.

"Oh please, there's no chance I'll get space madness!" She fastened her pants up and took her Scroll out, making sure it was in working order. "Besides, I'm too pretty to go crazy.~"

Taiyang turned back around and made a comically exaggerated expression of horror. "Oh no, it's claimed you already! I knew it was too soon to take my baby girl into deep spa- Oof!"

"Your 'little girl' is also the Warrant Officer; don't make me declare you unfit for duty, mister!"

They locked eyes for a moment, then just burst out laughing for a full minute.

"You know…," she said, "...I'm really glad you're here right now." He slung at arm over her shoulders, squeezing her close. "I honestly don't know what I'd do without you around to keep me straight."

"Probably drink a bunch until you got a beer gut," she quipped, poking him in the stomach, "which might just happen anyway.~"

"Hey! I'm not _that_ fat!" he gently shoved her away.

"Not if you keep hogging all the biscuits like last time!" she said, taking the chance to rush off towards the communal dining area.

"Hey, I'm the goddamn captain here; I should get first pick!"

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Breakfast was a communal affair, with everyone sitting and eating together in a kitchenette that also held the personal cubbies everyone had if they needed a siesta. The crew was typically amicable with each other- a symptom of traveling and working like they did- though there was usually a particular subject that often reared its head during conversation...

"So, since we're all awake now," the surprisingly regal voice of Sienna Khan spoke up among the din of chatter over "breakfast", "I think we should talk about the bonus Flynt and I are getting after this job."

Without missing a beat, the dark skinned man sitting to the Faunus woman's left swallowed the food he'd been chewing and chimed in "We do just as much work around this tub as the rest of you guys do, so it'd make sense that we should get an equal share once we make port again, right?"

"Oh," a mustachioed man remarked, otherwise seeming to barely hold any interest in making conversation, "is it 'bitch about wages o'clock' already? I suppose I'd better make sure my watch is set."

"Can it, Watts!" Sienna snapped before continuing. "I don't _want_ to believe it's because I'm a Faunus-" The tiger ears on top of her head twitched. "-but it's kind of hard not to think it's a factor."

"I don't see how it could; we're all contracted based on the scope of duties, not what our race is. I'm sure if you wanted to renegotiate your contract I'm sure you could get a better deal," a woman with vibrant red hair interjected.

"Pyrrha…" A girl with olive, freckled skin and an impressively sized ponytail reached a hand over and placed it on her crewmate's shoulder. "I know your heart's in the right place...but when you're a Faunus things are kind of an uphill battle."

"Which is why it's _bullshit_ that Flynt and I are getting shafted like this!"

"_Fucking_ bullshit."

"It's nothing of the sort," Watts chimed in again. "And should you decide to shirk the duties you were contracted for as some kind of misguided protest-"

"I thought I told you to fuck off-"

"Sienna, please, there's no need to-"

"You're just going to make things worse, Pyrrha-"

"If you'll just listen for a moment I think you'll-"

"I'll listen to you eating the inside of my ass, you corporate piece of-"

_"Everybody just shut the fuck up for a minute!"_

All the noises in the kitchenette immediate ceased, the blonde captain rising to his feet. Taiyang was normally a calm, easygoing man, often letting Yang handle disputes that inevitably popped up in their line of work. (She'd been told her eyes seemed to flash red when her emotions started heating up, an effective if uncontrollable intimidation tactic.) In fact, as far as Yang could remember, her father had only ever truly lost his temper twice in her life. It was an awesome, terrible sight to behold.

If he'd felt the need to get involved now, he must have _really_ been getting annoyed with the argument.

"..._thank you_." He set down again once he was sure the silence would last, then he gestured to Watts, "Now let him finish." He nodded at Watts too continue, to which the mustachioed man nodded.

"What I was _saying..._," he resumed, "was that failure to complete your duties results in a total and complete forfeiture of any agreed-upon payment or shares. ...no exceptions" He just let the statement hang.

For about ten seconds, no one said anything.

"...it's true," Pyrrha spoke up eventually, "I have read through my contact, and it says that as well."

While Flynt's expression didn't really change throughout the whole exchange, Sienna's face suddenly lost it's previous fierceness into something resembling stunned realization; apparently, she hadn't read through the contact she signed when she came onto the crew here.

This soon changed to a rather plastic cheerfulness.

"Well, if that's the case, then that's the case," she said, "Just point me towards the nearest problem!"

Yang grinned, but didn't comment. She'd known Sienna Khan long enough to know that the woman wasn't going to let the matter rest for very long, but given this new (to the Faunus mechanic, anyway) information she'd at least wait until they reached their destination before she mentioned it again.

About that time Taiyang rose once more from his seat. "Welp," he said, cracking his neck, "I may as well go see _why_ we got the early wake up call…" As he headed towards the _Sunny Dragon_'s bridge he jokingly called out _"Everyone try not to die until I get back, ok?"_

"No promises!~" Yang called back. If Tai was doing his little Dad Jokes, that was a good indication that the tension had passed- at least for the moment- and relative normalcy was once again the order of the day.

Throughout all this, Zwei had been content to simply enjoy his kibble, the bowl audibly scraping across the floor every now and then as he ate.

"Thanks for trying to play peacemaker," Yang said to Pyrrha, patting the redhead on the shoulder as she passed by to deposit her dishes in the cleaner unit, "If nothing else, it saved me heaving to pull rank."

Pyrrha smiled back, nodding as she handed Yang her own dishes.

"Well, if no one else has any _other_ pointless complaints regarding our jobs," Watts pointed out, "I suggest we start attending to them while the Captain gets briefed." He deposited his own dishes in the cleaner, then headed for the bridge.

Yang sighed. "...I hate to admit it, but he's right; this tub ain't gonna fly itself."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

It took a few minutes for the crew to shake themselves together after breakfast, but soon they'd all made their to their way to each of their respective stations, going through their respective checklists. As the warrant officer (and basically second in command due to her association with Taiyang), Yang typically didn't have as much to do as the rest of the crew did, at least in terms of actively running things on the ship; she mostly worked in conjunction with her father, acting in his stead if they needed to see to multiple things at once.

In this case, she oversaw the others as they set up, checking the readouts on her display to confirm that the ship- pretty much the only thing keeping all of them from dying of asphyxiation in the void of space- was still in working order.

"How're things looking downstairs," she asked over the intercom to Sienna and Flynt, "any space squirrels make their way into the radiators?"

"_You _know _that's not a thing,"_ Sienna shot back, "_But no, nothing's going to explode any time soon...though we _definitely _need to put into drydock soon; there's a fuck ton of connections and components that should probably be replaced before the next trip."_

"...will that cause any problems in the short term?"

There was a moment of the two engineers chatting indistinctly.

"_...pretty sure they won't,"_ Flynt answered, "_Like, 89 percent sure."_

"Then write me a shopping list and I'll put in the order for everything once we dock. Speaking off…" She cut the channel and turned to Ilia, "How long until that happens, Ills?"

"...you're not gonna like this…," the chameleon Faunus said slowly, "You see...we're still out in space...nowhere near our destination."

"But then why were we woken up?" Pyrrha wondered.

"_Any number of reasons: it could be-"_

"_Can it, Watts_!" Ilia interrupted. "I mean, we're not lost or anything; this is still known Space. We're just a few thousand lightyears away from our destination."

"...OK, that's...somewhat reassuring," Pyrrha mused, "But that technically doesn't answer 'why'." Then she quickly turned to Watts and told him "_Beyond_ speculation." before he could repeat himself.

"_Fortunately_!" Taiyang announced, choosing that moment to make his presence known on the Bridge, "MOTHER told me exactly why we're out here; tell Sienna and Flynt to meet us in the dinner area and I'll explain everything."

_to be continued..._

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/


End file.
